Covid19, Cabin-Fever and Contact Centers

So 6 weeks into Covid19, how are you faring? I hope that you and your family are safe and well. But it has been 6 long weeks…are you feeling stir crazy, have cabin fever, love your spouse and children, just wish you could have a small break from them? Well, you are not alone, more than 90% of the population has been under one type of stay at home order or another. In our April newsletter, I expand on the challenges in my working from home and the much bigger questions every contact center will need to answer post Covid19 and the challenges they will face moving forward. You can read our April newsletter here

Many contact centers have laid off or furloughed staff…from technical support to travel/hospitality, even BPO’s, consumer affairs, and packaged goods organizations. These reductions have not just been front line agents, we have seen supervision, management, quality, and training all receiving cuts. Some BPO’s are laying off sales and account staff. Yet some contact centers are booming and struggling to recruit enough staff…ecommerce for example (we know that we are all shopping more online than we ever did before), financial services, healthcare, health plans, primary care providers and telehealth centers are often overwhelmed. One telehealth provider’s ASA went from 90 seconds to 180 minutes and callbacks were offered three days hence. And, of course, government centers are jammed with people calling to see if they are eligible for support or wondering why they haven’t received it yet.

While we have seen a slowdown, projects postponed and a few canceled due to Covid19, we are staying busy. We are coaching the center leadership of a financial services organization to make their remote model for effective and efficient. We are also completing an end to end assessment for a state health plan, working 100% remotely. We are also developing WFM models for an international finserv firm for their global hybrid contact centers.

If your volumes are down, now can be an ideal time to upskill and uptrain your agents, It is a great opportunity to catch up on training or QA that may have been deferred in the early days of the crisis. It can be a great time to benchmark your center against ‘best in class’ organizations. We can assist in all of these areas or any other area of contact center operation. Just give us a call if you would like to chat about our services, capabilities, if you would discuss industry trends and how they may be impacted by Covid19 or if you are just bored and would like talk.

Best regards, and stay safe, and stay well.

Colin